


my heart stops when you look at me (just one touch now baby i believe)

by fortunatedaughter



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-11
Updated: 2016-10-11
Packaged: 2018-08-21 21:18:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8260781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortunatedaughter/pseuds/fortunatedaughter
Summary: She comes to resent the words – Look what we got here. Ginny Baker, in the flesh. What the fuck does that even mean, her being there, somewhere, in the flesh? She’s not important; no matter what her Pop hopes will happen with baseball when she finally masters that screwball.orthe soulmate au no one asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so i ended up writing this instead of doing my uni readings & homework because i saw [this ask](http://ginny-lawson.tumblr.com/post/151647909298/soulmate-au-where-you-have-the-first-words-they) on tumblr & then it spawned 4k fic. part two will be mike's pov because i'm a true sucker for these idiots.
> 
> as always, pitch does not belong to me, i'm just merely borrowing them for my own amusement. title is from teenage dream by katy perry.

Soulmate marks, for all intents and purposes, are still a goddamn mystery. Scientists study them of course, prop them, and wonder about the ink that litters people’s skin. They question what the words mean – why they’re always the first words and not a name or even a symbol that matches with someone else.

(One writer suggests its because often you know, within moments of meeting someone, you know who they are and what they are and whether or not they’re going to be in your life for the foreseeable future.)

(Another says it’s because of chemical reactions due to being around your soulmate.)

(A third says it’s none of that and that soulmate marks are a mystery, steeped in myth and superstition and it should be left that way.)

None of this helps Ginny Baker when she meets her own soulmate.

 

* * *

 

The first time Ginny sees a soulmate mark; she’s 16 years old and sitting on the front steps of her childhood home, watching as her father loops his fingers around a nectarine, showing her how to throw a screwball. She can see the writing on the inside of his forearm; the words – _My name is whatever you want it to be._ – scrawled sloppily and messily, slightly blurred as if the words have long since blended together.

Ginny frowns, her head tilting to the side. “Is that what Mom said to you when you first met?” 

Her Dad pauses, lips pursed as he glances at Ginny. He can’t seem to the glance at the words scrawled on his forearm, as if they cause him too much pain to do so. (In 7 years, Ginny will know that exact pain herself, for she won’t be able to look at her own mark too. ) “No – it was… from another girl.”

“But that means…”

Bill Baker sighs and glances away from his daughter, eyes filled with pain and sadness. “She died, kiddo. Long time ago.” 

Ginny Baker never brings up soulmates around her parents ever again.

 

* * *

 

Six months after that fateful afternoon with her father, everything changes. She’s cutting class with Kadi de Marco’s to go swimming in their family pool thanks to a particularly nasty North Carolina heat wave – when Kadi lets out a little scream and rushes to Ginny’s side.

Deft fingertips poke into the soft and smooth skin of Ginny’s hip, where subtle curves are only just beginning to peek through. “Oh my God! You’ve got one!” 

Ginny frowns, attempting to twist out of the girl’s grip. “Got _what_?”

“A mark! You’ve been marked!” Kadi grins and her fingers poke at the short, blocky and neat letters that curve along Ginny’s hip. She frowns; twisting to so she can get a better look at the words her soulmate will speak to her.

_Look what we got here. Ginny Baker in the flesh._

Her heart bottoms out and soars in equal measure.

 

* * *

 

The high school history class that Ginny takes where they teach about the marks is practically pathetic. She sits in the backrow, 18 and bitterly sarcastic as most teenagers are, highly debating whether or not to cut next period to makeout with Luke Sampson before practice that night.

She’s not really paying attention – not much besides baseball really interests her anymore – but a handful of Ms. Hancock’s words stick with her. 

“Soulmates have been around since the dawn of time. Don’t try and make sense of them; don’t try and fit them into a tiny little box. Your souls might be two halves of the same whole, yes, but you are still individual people.”

 

* * *

 

She comes to resent the words – _Look what we got here. Ginny Baker, in the flesh._ What the fuck does that even mean, her being there, somewhere, in the flesh? She’s not important; no matter what her Pop hopes will happen with baseball when she finally masters that screwball.

She notes that every boy she dates from then on out is careful to avoid touching her mark – feels like a neon sign that’s screaming they have an end date; that she’s another’s property and not her own woman.

She comes to hate whoever the fuck is on the other side of those words and wishes never to meet them. 

(When her father dies, and she’s sitting there on the sidewalk, uniform stained with blood, she takes it back because never in that moment has she wanted her soulmate more anything; even if it’s just for someone to hold her.)

 

* * *

 

Meeting Evelyn and Blip restores some of the faith she has in soulmates. It’s comforting to know that two people can having matching marks and make it work; getting an adorable family out of the whole thing.

“Nearly fuckin’ died right then and there when she came up to me the first time.” Blip grins, arm slung around Evelyn’s shoulders, his thumb rubbing along the spot where her own soulmate mark is.

“Right back atcha, baby.” Evelyn grins, her fingers tapping over his ribcage where his mark rests. 

Ginny smiles into her curly fries and _hopes_.

 

* * *

 

 

When she meets Trevor, her heart speeds up just a little bit. She struck him out three times that night so – meeting her in the flesh had to mean something right? He had to be surprised seeing her in the bar, right? She hates how ever since Pop died she’s been desperate to meet her soulmate – desperate to have someone who understands her so truly and completely.

(She tries not to let in show on her face when it’s clear the words aren’t coming from him.)

 

* * *

 

(When Ginny sends him a picture or two while they’re both on the road, she tries not to think of how she’s covering her soulmate mark on her hip. Tries not to make a big deal out of it because it isn’t a big deal. Lots of people end up with people who don’t share marks – just look at her parents. But she knows that’s different, it will always be different.)

 

* * *

 

The day she’s called up to start as pitcher for the Padres, her soulmate mark is the last thing on her mind. There are bigger fish to fry. 

And then Mike-fucking-Lawson has to open his goddamn mouth.

“Look what we got here. Ginny Baker in the flesh.”

Her heart stops, leaps into her throat – because. No. **_No_**. It can’t be. She has his rookie card, she slept with his poster above her bed, she watched his very first game with her father – her soulmate can’t be Mike-fucking-Lawson.

(Her baseball adoring 16-year-old self leaps for joy at _Mike Lawson_ being her soulmate.)

 He doesn’t even seem to notice that Ginny’s tapped out of the conversation, too lost in her own world and her own thoughts about the fact that he’s her _soulmate_ to even hear what he’s saying. “I've been answering questions about you forever, and that is not easy for me, you know, talking about other people. They tell me I'm a narcissist.”

She blinks, plasters a look on her face. Tries to calm her wild heartbeat beating a tattoo against her ribcage. Reminds herself that not all soulmates end up together and just because one person finds their other half in someone, doesn’t mean it’s reciprocated. 

(Just look at Will and Parker. They crashed and burned because one wanted more and the other didn’t. Her heart still breaks at the look on Will’s face.)

Her shoulders level and she inhales sharply. This is nothing of importance. Something as utterly mind-blowing as Mike Lawson being her soulmate shouldn’t deter her. She’s got plans – she’s going places and this starting game today is just the first step in her life story. “I should tell you, I have your rookie card. You've been my favorite player since I was...” 

Something flashes through Mike’s eyes and before Ginny can even comprehend what it means, _makes you look stupid_ , is falling from his lips.

Suddenly, her 16-year-old self isn’t so enthralled with Mike Lawson being her soulmate.

 

* * *

 

 

That night in the apartment, fresh over her less than stellar opening game, long after Evelyn has cleared out, fixings for Bloody Marys all but erased from the living room, Ginny stands in front of the tiny mirror, shirt bunched up around her rib-cage. Her fingers press into the soulmate mark, the words that Mike-fucking-Lawson first spoke to her. 

Is it possible that it’s a mistake? The science is murky, which is half the reason there’s really only one class about the whole thing when everyone is in high school. It’s possible it’s a mistake. It’s possible someone else was meant to say those words to her. Maybe Mike just said them first and – when did he stop being Lawson and start becoming Mike? It’s barely been 24 hours. 

As her fingertips press into her name, press into the word _flesh_ that’s neatly scrawled along her hipbone, her heart aches painfully and leaps into her throat. She knows without a doubt that the words aren’t wrong and _aren’t_ meant to be said by someone else.

 

* * *

 

 

(Two nights later on the mound when Mike is knee deep into his speech, she starts to get a glimpse of the reason why Mike Lawson might possibly be her soulmate and she fucking hates it.)

 

* * *

 

 

Time passes. They become friends. Trevor falls back into her life, tells her that those pictures aren’t gone like she thought they were. (‘ _You need a golf partner_ ’ echoes in her head and she tries to fight the goofy grin on her lips as she thinks back to that little exchange, leaning against cases of packaged peanuts.)

She settles into the team. Tommy accepts her, offers himself up as an alternate mentor to Mike with mutterings about pitchers having each other’s backs. (She tries not to wonder if it’s because he senses she’s always holding back around the catcher, since his eyes always hold a quiet sort of perception – like he sees the lines connecting each and every person.) 

Blip tears his ACL, gets put on the DL for six months. (It’s the first time she prays since that day her Pop died. It’s the first time she’s seen Evelyn cry and the look she shares with Lawson as the other girl holds her hand keeps her up for a week.)

She works on her knuckleball, quietly, by herself, spending hour after hour in the cages, imagining her Pop there and catching like he always did. (It almost mirrors that first night, except it’s tinged with bittersweet longing instead of steely determination.)

Those pictures she sent to Trevor all those years ago leak to the world and she doesn’t even care – she’s just happy that her soulmate mark isn’t up for public consumption, lest Mike figure it out.

They become _best friends_ – he’s the one she goes to when her mother implodes, when her brother becomes the only member of her family still talking to her. She’s the one he stays up late talking too, sitting up the back of the bus as they drive through the night, state lines blurring together; when reality alters on its axis and she feels like she could do anything she wanted – even lean across the seat, press her lips to his and feel just how soft that beard of his is.

She thinks they’re heading towards _something_ – thinks she’s almost ready to tell him about the ten words on her hip, thinks she’s ready to give them a try or even just reach an understanding that one day, one day they’ll try.

And then she learns he’s been fucking Amelia.

 

* * *

 

She’d like to say she doesn’t care. That he’s an adult and consenting and single, so he can do whatever he wants. He doesn’t owe her anything. That Amelia is also an adult and consenting and single and just because she’s Ginny’s agent doesn’t mean she has to police the ballplayers she dates.

In reality, she does care. The words on her hip make her care, no matter how much she wishes they didn’t. The fact that Mike and Amelia are two key people she completely and utterly relies on in this strange and difficult world of hers… that makes her care.

And for the first time since she was 16 and making out with Bobby de Marco at a summer blowout party, she hates her mark. Hates that the Gods spilt her soul in half and put it into another man and demanded she put herself through such a thing because this was what destiny had decided for her. 

She hates that her soulmate is for all intents and purposes, the one man she cannot have – her own rule aside. He’s her captain, her catcher, her best-fucking-friend. She hates how she knows all the reasons why she can’t have him and none of it makes her want him any less.

“Hi.” Mike starts off, hesitant as he lurks in the door of the gym. 

Ginny pauses in her assault of the punching bag and wipes her forearm along her sweaty brow. “Yo.” 

Silence. Ginny purses her lips and glances down at her hands, noting that she’d probably change the wraps sooner rather than later – she’d been going at the bag for a good hour at least and the state of them wouldn’t be pretty.

“It hasn’t –”

Ginny’s head snaps up. “I really don’t wanna know.”

Mike looks suitable chagrined. “Right.”

She doesn’t wanna let him off the hook – she wants to shove it down his throat that she’s hurting, that her soulmate is fucking someone else; someone she truly and utterly trusts with all parts of her fractured soul… - but one look at the hesitant and slightly embarrassed look in his eyes and Ginny can’t bear it any longer.

A sigh falls from her lips. “You can do what you wanna do, fuck whoever you wanna fuck, just – leave me out of it. Okay?”

She ducks, picking up her gym bag before brushing past him because another moment in that room with him and the soft, subtle frown between his eyes and she was quite possibly going to start crying.

 

* * *

 

Things between the two of them shift. 

She sits next to Tommy on the bus when they have a game on Chicago. (She learns somewhere between Colorado and Kansas that Tommy’s soulmate didn’t love him back; that they heard the words fall from his mouth, scoffed and ran out of town. She wonders if that’d be easier – dealing with the pain of absence with a thousand miles between her and Mike, - instead of knowing he was sitting four isles ahead of her and that she couldn’t have him.)

Time passes again. 

They play the Marlins in Miami and during the fourth inning – something happens. A connection is made and Ginny feels herself slip into a sort of state. She can sense it happening right there behind the plate, too – how what she feels is what Mike feels and how what Ginny feels is what he feels.

(She cries in her hotel room, realizing that she’s in love with Mike Lawson and there’s nothing she can do about it.)

Summer cools into winter.

They miss the playoffs.

(She hears from Evelyn that Amelia and Mike broke up in what Amelia describes as messy and what Mike says was always going to happen.)

(It doesn’t make her feel any better.)

They reach a truce two weeks after the season ends when he shows up on her doorstep – she finally moved out of the serviced apartment and into her own trendy, industrial loft – beer and take-out in hand.

One look at his hopeful smile and she just knew – loving Mike Lawson was never going to be easy, but neither was getting to the majors and she did that. 

 

* * *

 

 

Him finding out about her mark really only happens by accident. Ginny had resigned herself to never being with him – had resigned herself that they were _that_ type of soulmates, no matter how much her heart longed for something else. She loved him, was in love with him, yeah, but they could never be. And she would rather have him in her life than not at all.

(Evelyn calls it bargaining. Ginny calls it acceptance.)

She’s going at the punching bag again since there’s only a handful of weeks till the season starts up again and she wants to be in better shape than she was last season when her world falls apart at the seams.

“Look what we got here.” Mike mutters, just loud enough for Ginny to freeze, her arms still held in a fighting stance. “Ginny Baker in the flesh.”

Her blood runs cold, her heart beats wildly and she feels that connection from the game in Miami lurking at the edges of her conscious – how easy it’d be to slip into it again, before she realizes.

His chin jerks at where her shirt has ridden up along her hip, exposing the mark; exposing those ten words he spoke to her a nearly year ago.

Ginny flinches. “Mike…” 

“How long?” His words come out somewhat choked and this – this was exactly what she’d been hoping to avoid. She didn’t want to be like Tommy, with his bitter words and black heart because his own love had walked out on him. She wanted more than this.

“First showed up when I was 16.”

“Sixteen,” Mike breathes harshly. “Jesus _fuck_.”

She takes a step closer to him, only for Mike to take a step back. Tears flood her eyes. 

He shakes his head, an unreadable expression on his face. “I can’t. – I need. I just can’t be here right now.”

She wonders now, watching him leave, if this emptiness is what Tommy feels everyday he wakes up. Because if it is, she gets it – that blackness and bitterness now is so utterly valid. But most of all she hates how her mark burns – burns the way her eyes do right before the tears fall.

(When will she stop crying over Mike Lawson?)

 

* * *

 

 

When she walks into the clubhouse the next morning and he’s not there, she feels like that first day all over again – _I didn’t see Mike Lawson back in there_ – and she hates herself. 

(Even more so when Al announces the relief catcher’ll be stepping in today. She thinks Tommy’s the only one who notices the look on her face if the soft frown is anything to go by. She hates how the only time she feels better is when Tommy squeezes her shoulder before they head out to the diamond – he’s the only one who understands after all, what it’s like to love your soulmate and have them not love you back.)

 

* * *

 

In the clubhouse, post-game, Ginny lingers, dragging her feet as she packs away her things. The rest of the team have long cleared out and it’s late enough that the reporters that usually follow her around as legal stalkers have long given up. 

“Hi.”

Ginny straightens quickly, winces as the bones in her back crack. She turns on her heal, drinks in the sight that Mike presents. Standard leather jacket, jeans and Padres t-shirt combination but most of all – he looks lighter than he did when he found his words on her hip.

She crosses her arms over her chest. “You always make it a habit of going missing when bombshells get dropped on you?”

He presses his lips together. “That was fair.”

Damn right it was, Ginny thinks angrily, and you deserve a lot worse than a goddamn pointed quip.

“I should tell you, I have your rookie card.” He murmurs and his voice sounds like the waves, washing over her with a gentle lull and crash. But – Ginny thinks blearily, her mind casting back to the day on the diamond. She watches with something akin to disbelief as he shrugs off his jacket, tugging the shirt of his Padres shirt up. And there, looping over his chest, right above his heart – is her first words to him in her own familiar scrawl. “You've been my favorite player since I was...”

Suddenly, Ginny can’t breathe. That connection lurks on the edges, begging to be tapped into, but Ginny can’t. She can’t – not when he was – her head is spinning much to fast to even deal with anything Mike might be feeling at that moment.

“Damn near gave me a heart attack that first day I met you.” He laughed softly, tugging his shirt back over his head as he ventures further into the clubhouse. “Rookie pitcher, first female in the MLB steps onto my diamond and who the fuck thought she’d be my soulmate?”

“I – ” Every word is suddenly lodged in her throat, like she can’t say anything and like she wants to say everything at once.

Without even thinking, Ginny blinks back the tears in her eyes and throws herself at Mike, her lips latching onto his own.

(It feels like coming home.)

 

* * *

 

They slam into his apartment not even half an hour later, barely able to separate long enough to breathe – too enthralled with the idea of being able to touch and kiss and give into the heat and fire and feelings always bubbling underneath the surface of their connection. 

 _He loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me_ chants through Ginny’s head as she tugs his shirt off, blindly dropping it to the floor. Her mouth shifts to his mark and she doesn’t even hesitate to bite at his skin. She relishes in the laughing gasp that leaves him as her tongue laves over the bite, relishes in the face that she is his just as he is hers.

(This was how it was always supposed to be. This is how they are always supposed to be.)

Somehow, blindly, Ginny and Mike make it up the stairs and to his bedroom, clothes littering the steps and the sound of laughter always following them. It’s not till she’s pulling him on top of her, his hips in the cradle of her thighs, his lips biting a hickey into the curve of her breast that she realizes it – he pushes inside of her for the first time, groan echoing in her ears and their connection: always lurking, always humming, flares to life again. Ginny doesn’t even fight it. Love, light and all consuming hope and happiness floods her chest and she feels it – feels so whole and complete, like a piece of her soul is clicking back into place. 

His hips cant in a delicious motion and one hand curls over her hip with his words, holding tight enough to leave rows of fingerprint bruises that, at best, are going to be there for days. His thumb brushes over her nipple, the ever so delicate stimulation doing far more for her than it possibly should, Ginny gasps, head thrown back and it clicks.

The Gods were right – their souls were spilt and hers, hers was resting in Mike just as his was resting in her.

Her teeth bite into the smooth, soft skin at the dip of his shoulder, and she looses herself to every feeling sliding through her body and through the love of her fucking life _._ It’s over far too soon, her name muttered in her ear in such a way that she thinks a tear rolls down her cheek as she herself comes, colour exploding behind her tightly closed eyelids.

 _Is it always going to be like this?_ Ginny questions blearily, rolling over to throw an arm over Mike’s chest, her lips pressing into her words along his heart without even a second thought. She can’t even bear to be away from him, now that there are no walls between them any longer, and he just veritably fucked her brains out.

Mike grunts, a hand tangling in her curls. “You’re thinking far too loud right now.”

“Mmm,” Ginny hums, one eye cracking open. “Maybe you didn’t do a good enough job then.” 

A surprised bark of laughter falls from Mike’s lips and he glances down at her, callused and bare hand smoothing over the skin of her bare back. Ginny doesn’t even fight the delicious shiver that rolls through her at such a sensation. “That a challenge, rookie?” 

She raises an eyebrow, daring and challenging all in one. “Think you can handle it, old man?”

“Try and keep up, Baker.” Mike laughs, pressing her back into the mattress and Ginny grins, dimple peaking out. If this is the rest of her life… – she thinks she can deal.


	2. Chapter 2

When Mike is 12, he first learns about soulmates.

See, Mike Lawson is one of the lucky ones in society – his parents are soulmates, found each other out of sheer dumb luck when they both first showed up to the same job interview. His mother walked away with the job and his father walked away with a date and the love of his life. 

He listens with childlike glee each night, tucked in bed, as his mother and father recount stories of their youth and how love is what keeps the world together – he dreams each and every night of finding his own soulmate, of finding someone who’d know him so utterly and completely that words would become unnecessary and obsolete.

None of these childlike dreams and hopes follow him past the age of 12.

 

* * *

 

From the time he’s 12 and a half, to the time he’s 14, in-between baseball practices and history classes and making out with Sara Carmichael under the bleachers, something in his older sister shifts.

He watches as his sister goes through woman after woman, man after man, leaving a piece of herself with each and every one of them – as if her soul was made up of tiny little fragments to give to each person she encountered.

His heart breaks and steels in equal measure – and he swears that he will never, ever end up like his sister. His soul is intact and meant for one woman; not thousands littered over the world.

 

* * *

 

He’s 16 when his own mark shows up and it’s both a blessing and a curse.

The first day of school and he stands shirtless in the mirror – ruffled and rumpled from sleep – and as he rubs the sleep from his eyes he sees it. Looping scrawl, right over his heart he sees the words. 

I should tell you, I have your rookie card. You've been my favorite player since I was... 

The first thing Mike does is grin – wide and bright and happy – because much like his parents; he has someone, he has someone. Secondly – he’s going to do it; make it to the majors, if those three words about his rookie card are anything to say.

But those three dots, those three words – since she was what? How old? Sick? A kid? Some major life event that utterly changed her worldview? His teeth tug on his bottom lip, and apprehension curls into his stomach. 

Three dots have never seemed so ominous.

The first girl he’s with after the mark shows up is Sara and she keeps her hand pressed over his mark the whole time.

(It’s not till three months later when she’s found her own soulmate that he realizes – she was keeping the mark covered, so she didn’t have to see it and be reminded of what it meant and what it was for.)

 

* * *

 

He sits through the high school history class, listening to Mr. Wilcox, an utterly bitter man drone on and on about the soulmate marks. He’s too busy trailing his eyes along the length of Maia Sanchez’s legs and turning a baseball in his fingertips to really worry about what the fucker is saying, but one sentence sticks with him.

“There is a reason our souls spilt into two. We were never destined to have it, so leave it alone.”

Mike’s pretty sure that violates some soulmate ethics code or something, but that doesn’t change the fact the sentence sticks to him like glue.

 

* * *

 

Those words, as he gets older – throw him for a loop. With each passing birthday and each passing moment where his soulmate doesn’t show up, he starts to worry.

Just _how_ young is this girl? Just _what_ has happened to this girl?

(He meets Rachel for the first time that night – tells her all about how he’s in the Triple A and he’s going places. He turns on that charm that worked on Maia Sanchez all those years ago, watches as she laughs and her strawberry blonde locks make a waterfall down the curve of her back. She says she’s not looking for something right now but Mike still considers it a win – he did get her number.)

 

* * *

 

When he officially starts with the Padres, sees his rookie card for himself in the flesh, something odd settles in his gut.

His girl is now out there, officially and everything. She has his rookie card. He wonders if Rachel has it, buried somewhere in her always-cluttered office that he once went down on her in, and she just hasn’t told him. 

(Mike doesn’t know why, but the thought of Rachel having his card scares him.

 

* * *

 

 

The thing is; he knows Rachel doesn’t have his words on her. He’s seen every part of her, and while she doesn’t have his words, he still feels that his soul fits with her own, still feels like she’s a piece of him. It’s so radically different and opposite to everything his parents told him growing up that – that he isn’t quite sure what to think. All he knows is he wants Rachel, is happy with her. And while half of his soul might rest in another, he gives his heart to the strawberry blonde reporter. 

 

* * *

 

 

(Blip, who came up from San Antonio just a few months after he did, doesn’t understand how he could marry someone who wasn’t his soulmate. Mike doesn’t have the heart to tell him not everyone gets their happy endings.)

 

* * *

 

 

It’s three months after the season ends that Rachel sits him down with tears in her eyes and tell him how she found David and how her words are on him and his words are on her.

She tells him about the affair, about how at first it was just about sex and just about being so damn lonely all the time before she realized that her words looped along the back of his neck.

 

* * *

 

(Blip and Evelyn don’t understand how he can’t hate her, why he doesn’t blame her for the affair. But they don’t know that for the first three months he imagined he was fucking his soulmate and not Rachel.) 

 

* * *

 

His divorce is a nightmare. He goes through women much like his older sister did. The press follows him like a rabid dog. He spends a lot of nights on the Sanders’ couch, too afraid to go back to this ice-cool, glass and glossy apartment. He prefers the warmth and earth tones of the house filled with the laughter of children and the cooking of a woman who makes a mean tray of brownies and damn fine cocktail.

(No one says anything, but Mike Lawson’s knees are on the out and his career is finishing up and he’s reached his peak. He looks the other way when the upstairs boys start talking about their options.)

 

* * *

 

Then Ginny Baker falls into his life. 

At first it’s just questions – they want his thoughts on the woman who might actually do it; who might break that damn barrier that’s steeped in nearly a hundred plus years of American history. Is her meteoric rise enough to actually do it? 

Mike doesn’t care.

He’ll worry about the girl when she shows up – _if_ she shows up.

(Blip doesn’t shut up about the girl, chattering away about times in San Antonio and Evelyn starts vibrating with excitement every time he’s at their place for dinner. The night Blip sits him down to watch tapes of her pitches, Mike swears he can feel the sting of her nasty screwball in his mitt, realizing that this girl might just be it.)

 

* * *

 

The first day of Ginny Baker’s start, and he’s got a twinge in his knee and he’s really not feeling it.

(Thanks for that call Rachel. Really, he did want to come down to LA in a few weeks and see her.)

He laughs it away, jokes with the boys, tries in vein to quell the rising anti-Ginny Baker sentiment that’s growing among his boys. Just thinking about how many speeches he’s gonna have to give to get them in line is already giving him a headache, which really says a whole fucking lot.

When she shows up on the green and Mike glances over, something settles in his gut. The laughter fades from his face, replaced by something akin

Mike lets his gaze tip over the rookie, eyes catching on muscle both visible and subtle. His jaw clenches. _Attractive_. He approaches, leaving the boys behind because she’s going to need someone to coach her through the shit-storm she just walked into. “Look what we got here. Ginny Baker, in the flesh.” He grins, approaching her, eyes already probing the look she presents. 

And the girl goes blank, so carefully and quickly Mike nearly stops and asks what the fuck is wrong with her. It’s way too early to be blanking on him now – they’ve barely started. He shrugs. “I've been answering questions about you forever, and that is not easy for me, you know, talking about other people. They tell me I'm a narcissist."

A moment passes. She levels her shoulders, inhales sharply and offers him some kind of look that throws him. “I should tell you, I have your rookie card. You've been my favorite player since I was...”  

Now, Mike likes to think he’s got a good poker face. He can usually handle Evelyn when they play five card draw, and her Dad was a goddamn dealer in Vegas – she knows the tricks of the trade, knew them before she was even 15 years old with Blip’s words on her arm.

_I should tell you, I have your rookie card. You’ve been my favorite player since I was…_  

Just like that – his mark looping across his chest aches painfully because the woman he’s been waiting 36 years for is standing right in front of him.

She’s a rookie.

She’s nearly 13 years younger than he is.

She’s Ginny Baker. 

Those three facts combine and explode in his head and somehow, he manages to blow his first chance with the love of his life right off the bat.

( _‘Makes you look stupid, makes me look old’_ will haunt him for a long time.)

 

* * *

 

When Blip takes him out that night, Mike’s ready to get very drunk to forget about all forms of Ginny Baker. (She walked off and he hates – hates that he’s already wanting to protect her and teach her and mentor her – hates that he knows exactly what he could do to make her feel better. It’s barely been 24 hours.) 

“This girl is your legacy.” Blip shoots him a look, taking a sip of his beer and all Mike can do is press his fingertips against her words, thinking about how Blip Sanders has no idea what Ginny Baker is to him. 

 

* * *

 

 

(When he gives the speech of his life to her, he sees it. That chin tilt, that look of steely determination enter her eye. Inwardly, he smirks and nods. That’s his girl.)

 

* * *

 

 

Time passes. They become friends. He finds he enjoys her company – stops seeing her as a crowd pleaser and a pain in his ass who shakes off his calls and starts seeing her as the one thing that might clinch the playoffs for them in the upcoming years. 

Then LA happens. He watches her dance, laughs and drains his beer and leaves. He loves that powerhouse of a woman, already so soon after meeting her but that’s the thing. Mike Lawson has been waiting his whole life for this girl, has been ready for her a lot longer than she’s been ready for him… and forcing that onto her… that just doesn’t sit right with him.

He starts sleeping with Amelia.

(The blonde shows him her own mark that first night in that bar in LA – looks him dead in the eye and says that she’s destined for another and that he’s never going to fill that void. When her eyes catch on his own mark, she doesn’t say anything, merely purses her lips before pushing the thought from her mind. – He wonders after that encounter, what she thinks knowing he’s the soulmate of one Ginny Baker before realizing open that can of worms is not something he needs to go near. 

He tries to fight the jealousy rising in his stomach when he meets Trevor Davis. It’s enough he had to witness the idiot going at her on the field, had to witness her screaming _nut up_! at him, it’s another when he learns the extent of their relationship.

(If scuttlebutt is good for one thing, it’s learning that men like Trevor Davis have to be kept far from his rookie, the love of his damn life.) 

He watches with silent eyes as Tommy offers himself up. (That kid always did have the annoying habit of picking up on soulmates long before anyone else did, the fucker.) 

Blip tears his ACL and Mike watches Evelyn break down in the hospital waiting room. He nearly looses his shit right then and there – it’s only by staring at Ginny that he manages to keep his cool.

His insomnia creeps up on him again; and when he can’t sleep, he catches her in the cages; working on what he thinks might be a knuckleball. Mike grins to himself, nodding proudly. 

That’s his girl.

 

* * *

 

 

The pictures Ginny sent her ex-boyfriend leak onto the net and he sits the entire team down.

“I’m only gonna say this once. No one will look at those photos. If I find out you did, the goddamn zombie apocalypse will look like a fucking cake walk to what I’ll do to you.” There is a part of him, in that moment, that is so utterly fucking jealous that Trevor Davis’ was the bastard to receive those photos (an unfortunate glimpse on his news app in the morning showed him just show steamy they were – miles and miles of smooth bronzed skin free of imperfections, the subtle lip bite in the top right corner) before he checks himself. Ginny is his friend, his best friend, his fucking rookie and she deserves better than this happening to her.

Mike glares at the team and they nod. He’s proud of his boys in that moment – the looks on their face clearly suggest that Ginny is their little sister who doesn’t need protection, but their gonna give it anyway. 

He tries not to think about how the night the scandal breaks, it’s also s he first night he turns Amelia down for sex.

They become best friends.

Bus trips blur together and state lines become obsolete. He remembers the last time he felt like this – when he had a ring on his finger and he dreamed about strawberry blonde hair. Now he dreams about wild curls and bronzed skin that sparkles. Looking at her sitting next to him, half asleep but not willing to let that conversation go, he imagines tangling his hands in her hair, tugging it just enough to tilt her chin up, pressing his lips against her own. He imagines pressing his tongue into her mouth, tangling with her own – he imagines the little noises she’d make as he showed her, proved to her: this is what you can find with me. 

Mike doesn’t get much sleep that night – too busy he was, trying to fuck his feelings out with a pretty, ice cool blonde instead of a warm and curly haired brunette.

Then he blows it and Ginny finds out.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s hard to explain to your soulmate that you’re sleeping with someone else. It was one thing when he didn’t know her, when she was just some unknown mystery and mystical force, just a handful of words on his chest. He didn’t have to think about it; worry about it because for all he knew, she might be dead or with someone else.

“Hi.” Mike starts off, hesitant as he lurks in the door of the gym. 

Ginny pauses in her assault of the punching bag and wipes her forearm along her sweaty brow. “Yo.” 

Inwardly, he flinches but ultimately says nothing. It’s hard for Mike because he’s actively trying _not_ to be in love with Ginny when he knows she doesn’t return those feelings – doesn’t need her captain coming onto her with a future she’s not ready for.

She looks down at her hands and Mark sighs. 

“It hasn’t –” It hasn't been going on that long, he means to say. It hasn't ever been anything like what I've felt for you.

Ginny’s head snaps up. “I really don’t wanna know.”

Mike looks suitably chagrined. “Right.”

He hates this. What’s the point of sleeping with Amelia again? It’s sexual satisfaction, sure, but – is there an endgame, a whole point to what he’s doing? She’s fun, sure and easy to talk to every now and then but the two of them have made it clear; their destined for others; so much so that Amelia’s forbidden him to even touch her mark and how she stays away from his even though he never said anything about it.

A sigh falls from her lips. “You can do what you wanna do, fuck whoever you wanna fuck, just – leave me out of it. Okay?”

Ginny leaves in a hurry and Mike tries not to let the ache of her absence consume him. That night, he stares at the ceiling of his bedroom and wonders when everything got so goddamn complicated.

 

* * *

 

 

Things between the two of them shift. 

He watches as she bypasses his seat on the bus, sitting next to Tommy on the bus towards Chicago.

(Those four isles feel like a million miles.)

Time passes again. 

The connection his Mom talked about reared its ugly head in Miami. He feels it, looking into her eyes, feels their shared soul fragments connect; slotting together like puzzles pieces. 

(It was rare, his Mom said, that it only happened in every handful of couples but when it does… when it does it was something memorable, something magical and pure. Something to be savored and protected. He thinks that 92-mile an hour screwball covers all of those categories. – but the look in Ginny’s eyes post game tells him all he needs to know. It’s killing her; she feels it but doesn’t know what to do about it.)

He breaks up with Amelia that night. He shows up on her doorstep a few hours after, take out and beer in hand. Mike can never have her the way he wants – always and forever – but having just a piece of her in his life is enough for him. 

 

* * *

 

One morning in the gym, everything shoots to hell. Mike’s reached a point were just having Ginny – being apart of her life and witnessing her drive and her dedication; that’s enough for him. It is.

(Blip calls it pathetic. Tommy calls it fucking stupid.)

He sees the shirt roll up as she punches her way into the bag, and frowns, seeing black ink. When did she get a tattoo? He peers a little closer and feels his heart drop right into his shoes. 

“Look what we got here.” Mike mutters, just loud enough for Ginny to freeze, her arms still held in a fighting stance. “Ginny Baker in the flesh.” 

She flinches as if she’s been burned. “Mike…” 

For so long – for so fucking long he thought… he thought he was the only one with a mark, that he was going to be cursed to love a girl who’d love another, that he’d have to settle for another Rachel or another Amelia because the one he truly wanted would always be out of his grasp.

His eyes finally tear themselves away from the mark. “How long?”

“First showed up when I was 16.” 

“Sixteen,” Mike breathes harshly. He was 29 and well into the highlights of his career with the Padres and it was – fuck. His knees were fine then and – she was 16 and already signed up to his ass while he was off married to Rachel. He was 16 when his ass signed onto her and she - she was three fucking years old. “Jesus fuck.”

She takes a step closer to him, only for Mike to take a step back. He watches as the tears flood her eyes and fights the compulsive urge to gather her into his arms, wipe the tears off her face. 

_Sixteen sixteen sixteen._ It runs through his mind like a broken record.

He shakes his head, an unreadable expression on his face. “I can’t. – I need. I just can’t be here right now.”

 

* * *

 

He flies down to LA to see Rachel.

The strawberry blonde opens the door, frowning when she sees that it’s Mike and not someone else.

“I found her.” Mike blurts, a panicked look in his eyes.

And because Rachel was always his friend before the two of them slept together, she merely shuffles out of the doorway and lets him in. 

“Uh – Ginny. It’s Ginny.”

Rachel freezes. “Fuck.” She looks like a combination of shocked and wondered and shocked all over again. “How –“ 

Mike snorts. “Yeah, do that for about two hours and you might get to where I am.” 

“Shit.” She leans heavily against the wall.

“Yeah.”

“Do you have –” Rachel hesitates, not quite sure if she can say it just yet.

“The connection?” Mike nods. “Yeah.”

Rachel laughed. “Then what the hells are you doing _here_ , Mike?”

“Cause I don’t know what to do.” He frowned. 

“Bullshit.” She looked at him, an odd mixture of fondness and frustration. “You grew up on this shit – your Mom and Dad raised you for this. You know exactly what you need to do. You just… you probably just weren’t expecting it to be her, huh? And it’s throwin’ you, because you thought you were gonna be alone for the rest of your life and…” 

(He flashes back to the last time he was in this house, asking for her back because he couldn’t stand the fact of being alone for one second longer.)

“Yeah.” He glances away.

“You’re an idiot, Mike Lawson.” Rachel shook her head, hesitantly approaching Mike and after a moment, she placed her hands on his shoulders, leveling him with a look. “Go back to your girl, before she starts too lose her own shit. You have been waiting for her for years now. Don’t stretch that out.”

 

* * *

 

 

He books it back to San Diego.

Not quite sure if it’s a good thing that he’s missed the game today, Mike stuff his hands into his pockets, rocking back and forth as he watches a slow moving Ginny drag her feet. “Hi.”

She freezes, standing up straight before spinning to face him. The glare on her face nearly damn takes his breath away and Christ – how could he ever have convinced himself he’d just be happy with friendship from this woman? She crosses her arms over her chest. “You always make it a habit of going missing when bombshells get dropped on you?”

He presses his lips together. “That was fair.”

And really, from that point on, there’s only one thing he can really do.

“I should tell you, I have your rookie card.” He murmurs and God, that feeling in his chest. He feels so immeasurably happy that he didn’t think it was even possible to feel this way; it’s nowhere near what he felt when Rachel walked into his life. He shrugs off the jacket, tugging his shirt up a moment later. And there, looping over his chest, right above his heart – is her first words to him in her own familiar scrawl. “You've been my favorite player since I was...”

She gapes. He doesn't realize till this moment what his talk with Rachel did for him. He wasn't expecting her - and he meant what he said, leaning against those cases of peanuts however many months ago - you're kind of blowing me away was not an exaggeration on his part... - but Rachel screwed him up. Fucked with his emotional response. Made him think that the each woman he loved was always going to have another waiting in the winds. And it was one thing to do with that Rachel - it was another win Ginny.

“Damn near gave me a heart attack that first day I met you.” He laughed softly, tugging his shirt back over his head as he ventures further into the clubhouse. He remembers it - remembers waking up and not at all expecting anything from that day aside from a new rookie (female) pitcher starting on this team.“Rookie pitcher, first female in the MLB steps onto my diamond and who the fuck thought she’d be my soulmate?”

“I – ” 

Without even thinking, Ginny blinks back the tears in her eyes and throws herself at Mike, her lips latching onto his own.

(It feels like coming home.)

 

* * *

 

 

They slam into his apartment not even half an hour later, barely able to separate long enough to breathe – too enthralled with the idea of being able to touch and kiss and give into the heat and fire and feelings always bubbling underneath the surface of their connection.  

_She’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine, she’s mine_ repeats through his head as her nimble and callused fingers tug off his shirt. He nearly looses his shit at the sight of her mouth on his mark, biting a less permanent but nonetheless real into the words she’d spoken to him. A laughing gasp leaves his mouth because God – this woman owns him, heart body and soul.

(No wonder Tommy saw it from a mile away, the fucker.)

Somehow, blindly, Ginny and Mike make it up the stairs and to his bedroom, clothes littering the steps and the sound of laughter always following them. She takes him into the cradle of her thighs, and his front lines up with her own – he doesn’t hesitate or waste time (they’ve both done enough of that, convinced the other wasn’t their soulmate) as he bites a hickey into the curve of her breast. – Mike shifts, pushes inside of her for the first time, groaning and then, out of nowhere the connection flares, nearly blinds him. He feels love, light and all consuming hope and happiness flood her chest; their slivered and splintered souls locking together as if they’d always meant to get to this point. 

His hips cant in a delicious motion and one hand curls over her hip with his words, holding tight enough to leave rows of fingerprint bruises that, at best, are going to be there for days. (It’s a matching mark to the one she left in the staircase not even moments before.) His thumb brushes over her nipple and he grins at the way she gasps, head thrown back and he knows, now more than ever –

He too, like his parents, is one of the lucky ones. He found the love of his life without much effort; and while it was a bumpy road to get there – they’re still here. That’s more than some people get, he’s aware.

Her teeth bite into the smooth, soft skin at the dip of his shoulder, and Mike mutters her name in her ear, a prayer and promise and proposal all wrapped up into one.

He feels the pull at the base of his spine, grits his teeth before it hits him like it always does – only so much more of everything because it’s Ginny and his half of his soul lies below her beating heart. 

Mike feels more than sees the arm thrown over his chest, feels her lips press over his heart. One hand come up tangling in her curls, much in the same way he’d dreamt about doing on the bus all those months ago.

Mike grunts, tugging on the curls softly. “You’re thinking far too loud right now.”

“Mmm,” Ginny hums, one eye cracking open. “Maybe you didn’t do a good enough job then.” 

A surprised bark of laughter falls from Mike’s lips and he glances down at her, callused and bare hand smoothing over the skin of her bare back. He relishes in the chill that he feels ripple through her – feels his heart swell with even more love for his storm of a woman. If that was at all possible. “That a challenge, rookie?” 

She raises an eyebrow, daring and challenging all in one. “Think you can handle it, old man?”

“Try and keep up, Baker.” Mike laughs, pressing her back into the mattress and as he catches sight of her grin, dimple and all, he can’t help but grin back. She was totally and utterly worth every minute of the wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember when i said i was gonna post chapter two this weekend? well its now 2am and here we are. high key, your girl has no self-control
> 
> as always - hope you enjoyed and if you wanna cry with me about these idiots on tumblr, i'm over at giinnybakers.


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